


The Bones Of Your Heart

by Jiksa



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Daddy Kink, Exes, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-16 13:00:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16954506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jiksa/pseuds/Jiksa
Summary: Louis’s still there in the morning. Nick doesn’t really know what to do with that.





	The Bones Of Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dannybsdadbod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dannybsdadbod/gifts).



> Written for the 2018 Tomlinshaw Exchange. Dannysdadbod - I had a fucking field day trying to write to all your lovely prompts. I hope this works for you! <3 Thanks to the loveliest xx for beta reading.

Louis’s still there in the morning. 

Nick... doesn’t really know what to do with that.

His clothes are still all over the floor when Nick wakes, the bed still warm beside him, the pillow Louis slept on still unmistakably smelling like booze and cigarettes and his cologne. Stinky’s curled up on Louis’s tracksuit bottoms. Nick has a fleeting, manic urge to barricade the doors and escape through a window, to be the one who runs away for once. He doesn’t, though. Can’t.

He considers calling Harry or Aimee or Pixie, but he… can’t. Half the problem, that.

He stops halfway down the staircase, squeezing his phone in one hand and the railing in the other. His legs feel heavy, his hands sweaty, his head already throbbing. His heart doesn’t quite know what to make of it either, the muscle cramping and the blood rushing and that old, sore ache flaring right back up again.

Muscle memory, innit? His body remembers, even if Nick’s tried to forget.

It’s been months and months of radio silence. Nick had asked him not to come ‘round anymore, and Louis been a cunt about it and slammed the door behind him, but he’d listened, and he’d stayed away.

Nick had said, _I can’t just be your dirty little secret_ and _do you even care what this is doing to me?_ and _I’m not just someone for you to hurt yourself on_ , and Louis had looked mutinous, but he hadn’t argued, and he hadn’t apologised, and he hadn’t stayed.

Nick had thought that would be the last of it. He’d sent Louis a text saying, _Probably best if we don’t talk anymore,_ deleted his number and then drunk himself under a table. Hashtag adulthood, hashtag coping.

It had worked, kind of, for a little while.

Except for how Louis’s here again now, hunched over himself on one of Nick’s bar stools, holding a lit cigarette between two bloodied knuckles under Nick’s kitchen fan. He’s in— he’s in _Nick’s fucking jumper_ for fuck’s sake, the too-long sleeves pulled over his slender wrists, the black cursive of his tattoos peeking out by his bare collarbones. Pig’s at his feet, curled up with her ears alert like she’s keeping guard.

As though Louis’s the one who needs protection from Nick. 

He looks like shit if Nick’s honest, skinny and bruised and smudged at the edges. He looks like a selfish, lost boy who’s already taken a sledgehammer to Nick’s heart and walked away without a care. He looks more beautiful than Nick knows what to do with, than Nick’s ever known what to fucking do with. He looks like pure, wretched trouble, and Nick’s never had much of a survival instinct when it comes down to it.

Nick would’ve thought he’d left by now. Louis never stays.

Louis isn’t the sort of boy who says _please_ , or _thank you,_ or brings a nice bottle of wine, or even looks Nick in the eye all that much unless Nick’s buried deep inside of him. He isn’t the sort of boy who talks about what he wants, or what Nick might want, or what this thing between them could be. He’s the sort of boy who shows up without warning or invitation, who snarks and pushes until Nick snaps, who keeps resisting until Nick wrestles the fight out of him, who begs and comes and can’t ever sleep after, who fucks off before the sun rises and leaves Nick stone cold. The sort of boy you break your heart on by accident, and then you don’t notice it’s in pieces until it’s already too late.

Past tense, of course. All of those things in the past tense, because Louis doesn’t come round anymore, and Nick’s moved on (sort of), and this _thing_ between them isn’t really a thing anymore. If it ever even was.

Except for how Louis’s in his fucking kitchen again, after stumbling drunkenly through Nick’s front door last night; refusing to talk and refusing to leave. He wouldn’t let Nick clean the blood off of his knuckles, or explain how it got there, or answer any of Nick’s questions. Not that Nick had the nerve to ask anything beyond, _what happened, does it hurt, what can I do?_

He couldn’t quite bring himself to ask, _Why are you here, of all places?_ or _Why me?_ or _What the fuck have you done to yourself, you miserable boy?_

All he did was cry into Nick’s neck as Nick held him tight, and then he fell asleep before Nick had gotten a single word out of him. And for all that the times they’ve slept together over the years, they’ve never actually… _slept_.

Pig doesn’t get up when Nick pads into the kitchen, staying traitorously close to Louis’s feet, but the whack of her tail against the tiles is greeting enough. Louis keeps staring out the window as though he hasn’t heard him, but there’s an obvious tension in his shoulders, a stiffness and stillness. He ashes his cigarette, a tendon jumping in his jaw. Nick watches the bob of his adam’s apple in his throat, considers escaping all over again.

He held Nick’s hand last night. He wiped his tears on Nick’s sleep shirt. He let Nick press his mouth to his temple. He refused to sleep anywhere but Nick’s bed.

Nick’s going to be sick.

Louis still won’t look at him.

Nick leans his hip against the kitchen counter, trying not to cross his arms across his chest in self-defense. It’s his house. Louis has no right to make him feel ill at ease in his own kitchen. He clears his throat, trying to sound less terrified than he is. “What are you doing here, Lou?”

Louis takes a long drag of his cigarette and bites at his reddened lips. They’re chafed like he’s picked the skin off with his teeth, swollen like he’s maybe spent all night kissing someone that wasn’t Nick before he got here. He exhales smoke through his nose like a cartoon bull, mutters, “I can’t figure out your fucking coffee machine.”

“Lou—”

“Coffee,” Louis snaps, turning to face him. His eyes are swollen, the whites all pink, his eyelashes clumped wetly together. The skin under his eyes is an exhausted lilac. He looks mutinous at having been found out. “I’m hungover as fuck,” he adds, a little more gently, almost like an apology.

Not that Louis’s the sort of boy who apologises.

Nick swallows, sinking back against the counter behind him. His breath feels all trapped in his chest, his ribs tight around his lungs. “I don’t know how you take your coffee.”

Louis sniffles and clears his throat. “Milk, three teaspoons of sugar.”

Nick nods, holding Louis’s unwavering gaze. He doesn’t understand what this is, what happened to bring Louis here in this state, what it is that’s still keeping him here. “And then maybe we could... talk.”

“Just make me a fucking coffee.” Louis wipes his nose on the sleeve of Nick’s jumper, where it’s bunched around his hands like mittens. His voice is hoarse, his cheeks rosy in the faint morning light filtering through the curtains. He sucks in another deep drag of his cigarette. “Please.”

 _Please._ Nick didn’t even know Louis knew the word. Something must be proper wrong.

Nick flicks the machine on, gets the milk out of the fridge and gets two mugs out of the cupboard. His hands aren’t quite cooperating, shaking a little more than he’d like. He hopes Louis doesn’t notice. This isn’t a thing they do, coffee and daylight and conversation. “Do you want some antiseptic?” Nick says lightly, rattling through his drawer for a teaspoon. “For your hand?”

“No.”

“I might have some antibacterial—”

“Nick,” Louis mutters impatiently, grinding his cigarette out and flicking the butt into a potted plant. He lets out a brusque huff, wrapping his arms around one bent knee. “I fucked someone.”

Nick’s stomach clenches painfully. Of course they’d never said they were only fucking each other. Not that Nick’s been with anyone else, not that he’s been able to, but he wasn’t under any impression that Louis was keeping it in his trousers. There have always been girls around Louis: cute, young, pretty. And it’s been _months._ “Hope that was nice for you, then.”

“It wasn’t. Wasn’t at all.”

Nick spoons sweetener into both of their cups, momentarily failing to remember his own preferences. Of course Louis’s had sex with other people since Nick, of course he has. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I paid for it.”

Nick puts the milk away, taking the opportunity to hide his reaction behind the fridge door. He doesn't know how to do any of this. “Hope it wasn’t expensive at least, if it was rubbish.”

“It’s not like I can just pick up someone on _Grindr_ , for fuck’s sake. I had to pay for it.”

Oh. _Oh._ Not a girl, then. Cool cool. That’s all fine. “I’m sorry it wasn’t… what you wanted.”

“Can you fucking look at me?”

Nick slowly closes the fridge door and reluctantly meets Louis’s eyes again. It’s almost impossible. He doesn’t know what to say to him, or how to hear anything else Louis might have to say. “Your hand,” he says, for lack of a better response. His stomach’s all twisted up and awful. Louis’s eyes are devastating. “Did he— did someone hurt you?”

“What?” Louis frowns, glancing at his battered hand. “This? No. I tried to put my fist through a brick wall.”

Nick looks down at his scraped knuckles, the bruises darker now than they were last night. Nick’s T-shirt is smudged red from where Louis fisted it as he cried. “What happened last night?”

“I fucked someone,” Louis says again, rubbing his unmarred knuckles under his nose. “And it was awful, and then I got blind drunk and punched a wall and came here.”

Pig still hasn’t moved, staying by Louis’s feet like she’s his to protect. Nick’s never seen her act like this with anyone but himself and Lux and baby Sunday. “Do you want painkillers? Or a… cold wrap or a flannel or something?”

“Nick—”

“I could run you a bath.”

“Nick, for fuck’s sake.”

Nick sighs. He doesn’t know how to do any of this. Louis let Nick hold him all night, let him rub his back and whisper nonsense like, _it’s gonna be okay, whatever it is, it’s gonna be okay._ “You were upset, last night,” he tries, swallowing against the lump in his throat. “I’ve never seen you that upset before.”

Louis nods slowly. “I was quite drunk.”

“Legless, actually,” Nick corrects, because he barely managed to haul Louis up the stairs with one arm under his shoulders and the other around his waist. He fingers the bracelets on his left wrist, just for somewhere to put his shaking hands. “And crying. And bleeding. And wouldn’t tell me why.”

Louis holds Nick’s gaze for a long, horrible time. He bites his lips and parts them like he’s about to say something, and then ducks his head again. He runs his uninjured hand through his hair, messing it up. “It’s complicated. And stupid.”

Nick presses his thumb hard against the inside of his wrist. “Why did you come here last night?”

Not for sex, clearly. For once. Not to apologise, either. Not for any reason that Nick can understand.

“I hated the way he touched me,” Louis says, averting his eyes. “The guy.”

“That you paid for,” Nick repeats nonsensically, trying not to imagine Louis naked and vulnerable and begging for it under someone else. Someone younger and fitter and possibly less garbage than Nick. Someone who maybe didn’t have to fight Louis every step of the way, who didn’t have to deal with Louis’s bratty insolence until he finally caved and admitted he wanted to get fucked in the arse. “Did he hurt you?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “You’ve already asked me that. No.”

“But it wasn’t what you wanted.”

“Are you thick? I mean, are you actually fucking thick?”

“Well excuse me if—” Nick snaps, before Pig gives a low, growling bark, baring her teeth the slightest bit. The rest of Nick’s rebuttal dies on his tongue. Louis reaches down to pet her behind the ears; she licks his hand and settles back down. “What the hell have you done to my dog?”

“Nothing,” Louis says, giving her the slightest fond smile. “Think she likes me.”

“She doesn’t know you well enough to like you,” Nick argues.

“She’s met me enough times to— can you shut the fuck up for a minute, please?”

Nick swallows. “Okay.”

“I’m trying to say something here.”

“Fine.” Nick carefully puts the coffee down in front of him and reaches to turn off the kitchen fan. He doesn’t think he can stomach whatever Louis has to say. “Please don’t smoke in my kitchen.”

Louis rolls his eyes, taking a sip. He winces immediately, glaring into the mug. Possibly not a fan of almond milk and stevia, then. Not Nick’s problem, though, is it. “It was freezing outside.”

“Then put on a puffa jacket. Or quit smoking. Or, I don’t know, smoke in your own bloody house.”

“Nick,” Louis says again, softly, and his name in Louis’s mouth makes his stomach drop. Louis leans forwards, resting his woolly elbows on his knees. He’s cupping his own mug with his too-big sweater paws. He’s in Nick’s black Pig jumper, fuck, as though he has any right. “It wasn’t what I wanted with that bloke, because it wasn’t— well. It just wasn’t what I wanted.”

Louis lifts a shoulder, looking to the left of Nick’s face like he can’t bear to face him. It’s not the shock it should be, the thing Louis maybe isn’t saying, but Nick’s just so, so tired of analysing and over-analysing and still failing to understand what the fuck Louis ever wants. “It’s different when you pay for it,” Nick says, as though he has any idea what it’s like to have sex with a hooker. “I’m sure you can find someone who won’t be awful.”

“I don’t just want _someone_ , though.”

Nick sighs, rubbing his hands over his face. He has a vague sense of impending doom about all this. “I told you I couldn’t do this anymore,” he whispers. “If that’s. If that’s what you’re here for. I can’t.”

“I—”

“No, I mean. I get that you like it when I… touch you, or—”

“Nick—”

“I get that you like being shoved around and held down and calling me daddy and—”

“For fuck’s sake—” Louis’s eyes dart around frantically, his cheeks visibly reddening as though there’s anyone else around to witness it. The flush spreads all the way down his chest, past the stretched collar of Nick’s jumper. “Don’t say that out loud. It was _once,_ and I didn’t fucking mean it.”

Nick frowns, because, “You came pretty hard right after you said it, so—”

“Shut the actual fuck up right now.”

Nick takes a slow sip of his coffee. It’s too sweet, but at least it’s caffeine and it’s not like he’s had much sleep. At least it stops his mouth from admitting how much he’s missed him, or how much it hurt to only be Louis’s dirty secret, or how much it hurt when he left and didn’t come back. “Fine. You don’t enjoy calling me d—”

“I swear to God, Nick. Shut up.”

“Fine.”

Louis puts his cup down and rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands, taking a big, long-suffering breath. “It wasn’t what I wanted because…” Louis shifts in the bar stool, looking between Nick’s eyes and his mouth. “I wasn’t in... you know, with him. I didn’t feel that way about him.”

Nick bites the inside of his lip. _No, no, no._ “Okay then.”

“Nick,” Louis says, surprisingly gently again. He shifts in his chair. “You have to say something now.”

 _You don’t feel that way about me either_ dies on Nick’s tongue. It’s been _months._ “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m serious.”

“No. You can’t be.”

“Oh fuck off.” Louis reaches above himself to turn the kitchen fan back on, already pulling another cigarette out of his pack. It buzzes into action, the white noise competing with the anxious pounding of blood in Nick’s ears. “I knew you’d be a prat about it. Forget I said anything.”

Nick puts his hand on Louis’s turned shoulder, trying to stop him from shutting down again. “Hey. Hey. No, you can’t just say something like that and then just— you can’t be serious.”

“And yet,” Louis growls, tearing his arm back. “ _And fucking yet_.”

Nick swallows thickly, frozen to the spot. Louis’s all stiff-backed and miserable, his cheeks rosy with the admission. Nick wants so desperately to reach for him again, but he’s terrified to. Or maybe… terrified, too. Louis’s shaking, proper shaking. Nick hasn’t stopped since he first froze on the staircase. This isn’t how they do things.

“I asked you not to smoke in my kitchen,” Nick says weakly. He hauls in a steadying breath before carefully reaching for Louis’s pack of Marlboros.

“Fucking say something, Nick.”

Nick whispers, “ _You can’t be serious._ ”

“Broken fucking record,” Louis hisses. He lights the cigarette between his own lips and blows a cloud of smoke into the room, not even aiming for the fan. The shadows under his eyes are heartbreaking. “Have you got any food? I’m starving.”

“What the fuck, Lou.”

“Could do with a bacon sarnie,” Louis says. His voice sounds off. “Something with ketchup. Maybe curry sauce.”

“Whose kitchen do you think you’re in right now?”

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Louis blurts, chewing nervously at his bottom lip. He rubs at his eyes again, sighing. He looks so young, so small, so lost. “Before. I was a shit to you.”

“Jesus,” Nick sighs. He tries to find words somewhere in his head, but there aren’t any there. Everything is static and noise and his own pulse pounding in his ears. He pulls a cigarette out of the packet. “What do you expect me to say to that?”

Louis flicks the lighter and holds it under the end of Nick’s fag. “I don’t know,” he says shortly, placing it carefully back on the kitchen counter between them. Nick wishes he was sitting down for this. “I don’t know anything.”

“Fuck, Lou.”

“I missed you.”

Nick takes a deep drag, his head spinning from the utterly inconvenient head rush. “You can’t fucking do this to me right now.”

“I miss you all the time,” Louis admits, his bottom lip shaking the slightest bit. His eyes are all soft and unfocused again. Nick wants to lean in and hold him again, but he can’t. “I missed you before we fought, too. I don’t know how to stop it.”

Nick swallows thickly. “You’re not a poof and you don’t like me. You’ve made both of those things very, very clear.”

“Well, yes,” Louis admits, chewing down on the inside of his cheek. His voice sounds all wet when he whispers, “It turns out I’m also probably in love with you, though.”

“Stop it,” Nick says, squeezing his eyes shut and dropping his elbows to the kitchen counter. The blood’s pounding in his ears, his heart twisting in his chest. He can’t take this. He presses his cigarette into his mouth with shaking hands. _Can’t_. “Don’t say stuff like that.”

“Nick,” Louis murmurs, and then his voice sounds even closer. His fingers ghost over Nick’s shoulder, before his voice is right there, in Nick’s ear. “Nick, hey… I’m as surprised as you are.”

“Stop it,” Nick insists. “I liked it better when you were a cunt.”

“Still am one. Promise.”

Louis cups his face, trying to turn it towards himself. Nick shakes his head, pulling away. “This isn’t fair, Louis. This isn’t fucking fair.”

Louis huffs. “Look at me, you twat.”

“I can’t…” Nick exhales, refusing to let Louis move his head. “I can’t do it again, the fucking and the leaving and the bullshit and the not telling anyone. I can’t. Not if you’re going to hurt me again.”

“I’m not asking you to do that again,” Louis promises, pressing his forehead against the back of Nick’s spine, right between his shoulder blades. “I’m asking you to do _this_.”

“What the fuck is _this_?”

Louis shrugs, spreading his hands out over Nick’s shoulders. It makes Nick want to cry, it’s so tender. “I don’t even know. Maybe this is the part where we order takeaway and watch TV on your sofa, and I tell my family about you, and your dog likes me better than you.”

“She wouldn’t,” Nick argues, turning his head. “She’s my fucking dog.”

“And yet,” Louis says, tilting his head to show a small smile blooming on his thin lips. “And yet.”

Nick glances between his pink eyes and his pinker mouth. “You can’t break my heart again, Lou. I can’t take it.”

“That’s okay,” Louis whispers, leaning closer. “I don’t think I can handle breaking my own again either.”

Nick sighs. “Fuck.”

“I’m sorry,” Louis says again, holding Nick’s face against his palm. “I told the lads last night. Not that it’s you, but that there’s someone.”

Nick can’t think of anything to say that isn’t, “I don’t believe you,” so he doesn’t say anything.

Louis arches an eyebrow, and seems to hear it anyway. “Okay,” he says morosely, taking his hands off Nick and pulling away. “I guess I deserve that.”

Nick’s stomach twists up again, but then he’s back a moment later. And then the screen of Louis’s phone is right there in front of them, and Nick reads Louis’s 1:33 a.m. drunken confessions into a WhatsApp group called _LADS_. 

_Im nnot gay but Ive been fucken someone who is_ and _hwo do u knw uoure in love w someone_ and _because mayabe I am_. 

Nick scans the few responses. Niall‘s said, _lou pick up your bloody phone please_ and Liam‘s said, _Mate this isnt funny are you jokin_ and Harry’s said absolutely nothing.

And there, at 9.11 this morning, right before Nick came down the stairs, _Not joking, promise. sorry for telling you like this._

“Fuck,” Nick breathes, the tightness in his chest giving way to a strange lightheadedness. “I thought you didn’t have a WhatsApp group.”

“Is that really important right now?”

“I thought it was an email chain.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

Nick’s going to be sick. “What the hell did you just do?”

“Nick,” Louis says, turning Nick around to face him. He’s lucky Nick’s all slouched still, or he’d be on his tippy-toes. “I fucked someone and it wasn’t you, and it made me so furious with myself that I put my fist through a wall.”

“You utter lunatic.” Nick glances down at his torn knuckles again, the skin angry and scabbing. His hands are so small. Nick wants to hold them. He can’t tell whether to cry or laugh. “Do you… do you want me to do something about it?”

Louis smiles. “Little bit. Kind of hurts.”

Nick hesitates, before carefully reaching for him. “Will you let me clean it?”

“Probably,” Louis whispers, brushing his mouth against the scruff on Nick’s cheek. His fingers are clammy and unsure against Nick’s, but he doesn’t pull away. “Probably going to complain a whole heap and refuse to sit still though.”

Nick sighs, looking between Louis’s pink mouth and his soft blue eyes. He feels a smile tugging at his lips without his say so. “You’re such a fucking twat.”

“I know you are,” Louis says softly, brushing his thumb over Nick’s bottom lip, “but what am—”

Nick snaps, “Are then are you going to call me daddy again?”

“Shut the actual fuck up,” Louis says, before leaning in to make sure Nick does just that.

 

—

 

Louis’s still there the next morning.

Still in Nick’s bed, still in Nick’s clothes, still kind of a twat.

Nick’s... well. Nick’s kind of into it, if he’s honest.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the poem [Visible World by Richard Siken](https://reflections.yale.edu/article/end-times-and-end-gamesis-scripture-being-left-behind/visible-world): _The dawn was breaking the bones of your heart like twigs._


End file.
